P&N Pirates: too weak?

Baron Munchausen · #1 August 27th, 2001, 06:05 PM

quote:
Originally posted by geoschmo:
Historically though pirates have not really been a legitamate force. They have always preyed on weak enemies and run from fights against actual military forces.

The idea has a lot of merit as a role play race though. They can be a tool of a powerful empire against an another empire. One that you don't want to attack directly.

I think they would be great in a medium to large size game where you have strong empires facing off in a "cold war" type situation. One where you want to cause your enemy problems without actually openly fighting them.

The problem may be finding players to play a race where they really have no chance of winning, only of influencing the game and having fun role playing.

Geoschmo

Convergence! The "adapted" AI required to operate pirates would be almost identical to the AI needed to operate space monsters. Think about how both would behave... seeking out planets and making raids, hiding in convenient storms/asteroid fields (if this can be made possible in the hardcode -- right now it isn't). The only difference is that one would be 'ships' and the other 'monsters'. 'Space Monsters' and 'Pirates' could both be added to the game at minimal programming over-head. A two-for-one deal!

As a bonus, there could be another option besides "random" pirates operated by the game. There could be an intelligence operation that lets you create a pirate force targetted at a specific empire. It would probably have to be established in a specific system and only be able to affect that system and possibly adjacent systems. You would have to spend resources, pay a "maintenance cost" to keep them around once they were created. This way ALL layers could "play pirates" without giving up their ability to win the game.

This would be a great way around the problem of treaty restrictions and the unconditional identification of the source of any attack. In RL it is often possible to carry out a raid without giving away who launched it. But not in SE.

A definite disadvantage to the simple "sides" in the current game design. Being able to harrass someone whom you have 'allied' with just because they are too big to attack right now (or because you are in another war already) would be really handy.

Further intelligence operations to subvert a pirate group or just discover who created it might be good options.

Now, the question is should the pirate ships be directly controllable by the player who created the pirate force? Or should they be an AI 'client' that only obeys orders 'most of the time' like a real bunch of pirates? I prefer the latter. Pirates don't strike me as exemplars of military discipline.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 27 August 2001).]

Spoo · #2 August 27th, 2001, 08:36 PM

quote:
hiding in convenient storms/asteroid fields

Do asteroids hide your ships?

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Assume you have a 1kg squirrel
E=mc^2
E=1kg(3x10^8m/s)^2=9x10^16J
which, if I'm not mistaken, is equivilent to roughly a 50 megaton nuclear bomb.
Fear the squirrel.

Phoenix-D · #3 August 27th, 2001, 08:50 PM

By default, no, but I think they can be set to do so.

Phoenix-D

Baron Munchausen · #4 August 27th, 2001, 10:34 PM

No, it does not work for asteroids. For some reason, the powers that work for storms don't work the same for asteroids. Sight obscuration doesn't work at all.

This is really annoying because the absolutely classic, cannon SciFi way for a smaller force to escape from a superior force is to duck into an asteroid belt.

I'd like MM to change that so it can work, and to make it possible to put more than one ability on one object. What if I'd like ALL storms to have sight obscuration, and then some of them to also have other abilities? As far as I know that cannot be done right now.

Matryx · #5 August 27th, 2001, 11:15 PM

An option would be to create an asteroid belt looking storm, describe it as a storm with sight obscuration, and merely have it so it can't be remote mined.

I believe this would work

DocShane · #6 August 28th, 2001, 06:41 AM

Schmo,

Did you see the thread "SEIV is being pirated?" ...........sorry, lame joke.

Suicide,

On the topic of Nomads and asteroids. Battlemoon is cool. However, I am talking about starting the game with one. They are so prohibitively expensive that it would take quite a while to build another. This would be the homeworld, rather than a planet. I haven't got that far in my playtesting, but could it be outfitted with crew quarters that let the population reproduce? You actually live on it and build facilities within it. A mobile planet. Can it be done with SEIV?

Again, no one is going to win SEIV with a nomadic race. But they have to move 1 or 2 behemoth asteroids around with a massive swarm of a fleet to protect their assets. They drift slowly from star system to star system until they find a place to "settle". Just don't cross a warp with a blackhole... instant death of your race at a movement rate of 1-2.

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The Good Doc

"Henceforth I spread confident wings to space
I fear no barrier of crystal or glass;
I cleave the heavens and soar to the infinite.
And while I rise from my own globe to others
And penetrate even further through the eternal field,
That which others saw from afar, I leave far behind me."

-Giordano Bruno
"On the Infinite Universe and Worlds," 1584

Puke · #7 August 28th, 2001, 07:44 AM

way back when, someone figured out a mod that would permit asteroids to be colonized. does anyone remember how it was done?

from what i remember, facility slots were based on the size of the asteroid field, and were identical to those of a planet that size.. but i could be wrong, and i would thing that it could be edited in the planet sizes text file.

this could also make for a very interesting theme game, if you did some heavy tech tree edits. you could have two kinds of races, asteroid dwellers and planet dwellers. asteroid dwellers would get a racial tech that gave them asteroid colonization and planet destroyers. planet dwellers would get planet colonization tech and planet creators.

which reminds me, i am certain that colonies are destroyed with a planet. i seem to remember with the above mentioned mod that colonies were not destroyed if a colonized asteroid field is turned into a planet. i could have just imagined that though.

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)